Unhappy when working. Unhappy when workless, Ctd

I often feel guilt for my bohemia. Guilty that I can sit in a coffee shop and read and practice my art while others have to slave around. Guilty that I can go to a Live Drawing event for a few hours and get paid what those coffee shop works get paid in a few days. Northern Irish poet Nick Laird said:

"I still feel a deep sense of guilt about writing. At least when I was a lawyer I felt useful, now I can waste whole days not doing much at all."

He also said:

"The writing life can be difficult. Time just dissolves away to nothing some days, and it is sometimes hard to believe in the validity of the enterprise."

Oscar Wilde wrote about the contrast between the bohemian and the lower echelons that make their bohemia possible. In The Soul of Man Under Socialism, he wrote:

"The fact is, that civilisation requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends." 

Kevin Drum wrote an article in Mother Jones, 'We Shouldn't Denigrate the Diginity of Work, Even Accidentally'. In it he said:

"Even people who hate their jobs take satisfaction in the knowledge that they’re paying their way and providing for their families. People who lose their jobs usually report intense stress and feelings of inadequacy even if money per se isn’t an imminent problem (perhaps because a spouse works, perhaps because they’re drawing an unemployment check). Most people want to work, and most people also want to believe that their fellow citizens are working. It’s part of the social contract. As corrosive as inequality can be, a sense of other people living off the dole can be equally corrosive."

Eric Stough, producer and animation director for ‘South Park, said:

"The key to a great life isn’t just happiness. It would be a boring life if it were."

Previous post in the series here.

The cult of university, Ctd

James Delingpole reminds us of the growth of university. A growth that I might add, needs corrected. He said in an article in the Spectator, 'The gilded generation - Why the young have never had it so good':

"Education: Of course it’s harder for graduates to find jobs — but that’s partly because there are so many more graduates. In the 1960s just one in 20 people went to university; now around half of all young people get to know the joys of freshers’ week, essay crises, late-night kebabs on vomit-spattered pavements and other formative further education experiences."

Jenni Russell backed up the figures and shared some commentary in my post here.

Why does everyone want to go to Law School? Ctd, 'Glut of graduates threatens hope of career in law' reports Sian Griffiths

From Sunday 23 2013 in the Sunday Times, a must read: 'Glut of graduates threatens hope of career in law.'

In short: young people are not being warned about the shortage of legal jobs according to the Law Society of England and Wales.

The warning from the Law Society certainly gives force to the article, 'It Is Now Completely Clear to Everyone That Law School Is for Suckers.'

Employability versus The Traditional University Degree - An Open Letter to Sir David Bell (part 3)

Sir David Bell, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Reading.

The Socratic dialogue continues.

Part 1 of this dialectical series was began by me with an open letter published on the Huffington Post and on Ambitious Minds which addressed Sir David Bell who had made suggestions in the Times newspaper that a growing push towards "employability" of university degrees was putting the 'intellectual integrity of degrees at risk.'

In Part 2 Sir David Bell responded to my riposte and gave his own counter-argument. I have since published what he had to say on my blog which you can read it here. Sir David Bell made a number of fair and interesting points.

In Part 3 of the dialectic I would like to give further response by broadening my argument, and by citing more of the commentators and authorities that I've been following and reading assiduously in recent months. To begin with, I would like to present three testimonies that all give a dim account of the "status quo" university education.

Firstly, to start with Dale J Stephens (@DaleJStephens), the founder of the Uncollege movement said of his university experience in the US: